Slip of the tongue
by joxdanny
Summary: Jo tells Rico a secret, swears him to not say anything, but a single slip of the tongue leads to another and it changes everything. Janny Fic.


Jo's eyes scanned over the paper in front of her. The diner was always her preferred hang out when it came to finishing homework. It had its cons though. The constant noise from the people she shared it with was one. Learning to filter out everyone else's conversations was an easy thing to do though. Almost too easy. Rico was talking but she was too faceted on the paper to understand what he was saying.

"Jo. Earth to frizzy hair lady. You listening?"

"Wha- um, yeah, yeah. About the quadratic formula." She didn't know if that's what he was actually talking about, but she figured she would wing it.

Before Rico could even give a look of displeasure from her extremely wrong answer, she interrupted. "I'm sorry." She apologized. "I've just been really kind of overwhelmed." The girl admitted as she sat down the paper.

"With what?" Rico pulled his brows together as he asked. "School, you have amazing grades at the moment, and you memorize things really easy. The case, you have me and Danny working alongside of you with that. If it's your dad, you know he's really just a big softy underneath-"

"No." Jo interjected. "It's none of those things…" She said slowly as she sat her pencil down with a sigh. She pressed her chin into her palm to hold her head up on the table. She felt completely exhausted.

"Then what is it?" Rico looked at her with a look of concern. "You're withholding information from me. Especially with the 'ahhh' you did when you looked away from me."

Jo took a deep breath. She wanted to tell him. She needed to tell someone, but she knew how Rico could be. She sighed. "You have to swear on everything, that if these words are ever repeated out of your mouth I may just rip your tongue out." She threatened him.

Rico lightly nodded, completely unaffected by the entire threat.

"Rico." She said bluntly. Jo needed a verbal answer about this she couldn't let there be any wiggle room with the promise.

"Okay, okay." He nodded. "I swear."

"I've…" She stopped and looked around for a moment. She knew that no one was listening in on them, but she was nervous to actually say it out loud. "I kind of have a, um… crush on someone…" She mumbled that last part and looked down to the straw paper on the table. She started to play with it in hopes that it would somehow detach her from the embarrassing truth that she just gave up.

"What?" Rico raised his brows and sat his pencil down. "Really? Who?"

Jo looked up to him with an _are-you-serious-face_. "I only talk to two people, ya know." She said nervously, keeping her gaze down.

It took Rico a moment but finally an "Ohhhh," came out of his mouth at full realization.

"Yeah…" Jo mumbled as she started to pick at the straw wrapper more furiously. A strong flush crept over her face now that she knew that there was more than just her in on her current interest. "Seriously, never speak of it."

Both of the teens turned to the door when they heard the bell on the handle ring, notifying the entire restaurant that someone had entered. It was Danny of course. Jo took a deep breath and forced herself to look as cool as possible. She wasn't that great of an actress though.

"Hey guys." Danny said coolly as he sat down next to Rico. "What're you guys doing?" He looked between the two curiously.

"Oh we're just talking about secrets." Rico blurted out without a second thought.

Instantaneously Jo brought a hand to her face and rubbed it with stress. "Oh my fucking god…" She muttered to herself. _This was a terrible idea._ She thought to herself.

Danny looked at Jo's reaction and glanced back to Rico. He seemed to be completely unaware of what he had just done. "Secrets, huh?" Danny asked curiously as he started to take off his jacket. "Um, what kind of secrets?"

"None." Jo jumped in quickly, before the entire question could even leave his mouth. "No secrets, what so ever." Jo said shaking her head as she flicked away the completely destroyed straw wrapper. She looked up to Rico and gave him a threatening glare. "Nope. No secrets at all."

Danny looked between the two, completely confused about the entire situation. "Well…" He started trying to dilute the awkward pause in conversation. "You guys won't believe what our wonderful friend Sarita said to me in the hall today."

Jo nervously chuckled, unbelievably thankful that the topic had changed. "I probably would." She smiled and looked up from the table for the first time. "What was it?"

"She was so kind to tell me that I was going to…" He paused so he could try to piece together her exact words. "… Die in a prison cell, or alone in my house with a ton of cats. Isn't that _so_ comforting?"

Jo snickered a little bit and rolled her eyes.

"Well that can't be true." Rico said taking what Danny said seriously. "You didn't do anything to get into prison, and you won't die alone since someone has their eyes on you."

Danny looked at him confusedly at first, but then glanced back to Jo.

Jo's smile instantaneously fell, and she stared at Rico intently hoping that he would get the message to_ shut the hell up_. She could feel Danny's eyes on her, but she couldn't bear to look over to him right now. "Rico…" She mumbled but he had already started his next sentence.

"Especially since the girl thinks cats are gross." He smirked, not even aware of what he had just done. "Right Jo?" He looked over to her with a smile.

Jo froze. Her eyes slowly drifted from Rico back down to the table. Her brain was trying to wrap around that fact that this was actually happening. She felt like she couldn't breathe. If she did then she would either start screaming, or start crying. Her entire face had turned to a nice dark hue of scarlet.

Danny watched Jo slowly cave into herself. He didn't know how to react to any of this. He watched Jo for a moment, but she seemed to be purposely ignoring his gaze. He looked back to Rico to see if he had any idea of the hell he had just done.

Rico glanced at Danny, completely confused as to why it had gotten so quiet between the three of them, but then it dawned on him. "Oh!"

Jo started to bite her lip and it looked like she was about to explode.

Danny felt like now was the time to step in. "Jo-"

"Well I better be getting home." She said quickly as she jumped out of the booth. Completely leaving her books and her beanie on the table without a second thought.

"Jo…" Danny called to her again. He grabbed her sleeve as she walked passed him but she yanked her arm out of his grasp. Exiting the diner as swiftly as possible.

Danny paused for a moment and looked over to Rico. He seemed to be as speechless as Danny was.

"She's going to cut out my tongue…" Rico murmured as he looked ahead of him emotionlessly.

Danny pressed his lips together in a flat line. "I'm going to go talk to her." He said as he pushed himself out of the booth and started down the street.

After a couple blocks he had finally caught up with her. "Jo! Wait a second." He called to her.

Jo squeezed her eyes closed and tried to walk faster, but he caught her elbow and turned her around. "Jo, let me talk to you." He pleaded.

"I'm sorry." Jo blurted out. "I didn't mean for you to find out like that. I didn't mean for you to find out at all. I know that you have a lot of shit going on…. And I don't want to be that annoying friend that tries to pester their way into your life, and-" She was talking so quickly that none of the words she was saying actually made sense, but Danny interrupted her by placing his other hand on her other elbow and pulling her towards him. In one swift motion his lips were on hers.

So many things washed over her in the moment. Relief, happiness, confusion, worry, but mainly the joy that at least she wasn't made a fool of in front of him without any kind of reward.

As they pulled away from each other she l looked up to him. He was looking back down to her as well. He gave her a crooked smile and ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. "I kind of like you too." He admitted quietly.

Jo's lips lightly curved into a happy smile at his confession. _Finally_ something good was happening. Maybe she wouldn't have cut Rico's tongue out after all.


End file.
